Contents
🧠 Building a Threat Intelligence Program
A Threat Intelligence (TI) program enables cybersecurity teams to shift from reactive to proactive defence. It involves collecting, analysing, and operationalising threat data to anticipate, detect, and mitigate threats effectively.
🎯 What is Threat Intelligence?
Threat Intelligence is the evidence-based knowledge of:
- Threat actors and their tactics (e.g. APTs, malware families)
- Indicators of compromise (IOCs)
- Attack motivations and methods
- Contextualised analysis for informed decision-making
It empowers cyber teams to act faster, defend smarter, and anticipate risk.
🧱 Components of a Threat Intelligence Program
1. 🧭 Define Goals & Scope
Start with identifying what you want to defend and why.
- Are you protecting intellectual property, financial systems, or customer data?
- Are you targeted by specific threat actors (e.g. FIN7, APT29)?
- Do you need strategic, operational, or tactical intelligence?
📌 Tip: Use a maturity model (like Gartner or MITRE CTI maturity) to plan phased growth.
2. 🔍 Collection of Threat Data
Sources of threat data should be diverse and contextualised.
| Source Type | Examples |
|---|---|
| Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) | Abuse.ch, AlienVault OTX, GreyNoise |
| Commercial Feeds | Mandiant, Recorded Future, Anomali |
| Internal Logs | Firewall, proxy, DNS, endpoint data |
| Government Sharing | CISA, NCSC, ISACs |
📌 Automate ingestion using tools like MISP, TAXII, or custom Python scripts.
3. 🧪 Threat Intelligence Analysis
Use frameworks to structure intelligence:
- MITRE ATT&CK for mapping TTPs
- Diamond Model for incident relationships
- Kill Chain for lifecycle stage
- STIX/TAXII for structured threat data
Types of intelligence:
- Strategic: High-level risk and geopolitical insights
- Operational: Campaigns, attack patterns
- Tactical: IOCs, YARA rules, signatures
- Technical: File hashes, IPs, malware samples
4. 📤 Dissemination and Use
Make intelligence actionable and digestible by delivering it to:
| Consumer | Format |
|---|---|
| SOC Analysts | IOCs in SIEM or EDR |
| Execs/CISO | Strategic briefings |
| IR Team | Threat playbooks |
| Developers | Secure coding advisories |
Enable integrations with:
- SIEMs (Splunk, Sentinel)
- SOAR tools (Cortex XSOAR, Splunk SOAR)
- TIPs (Threat Intelligence Platforms like MISP, ThreatConnect)
5. 🚨 Threat Intelligence-Driven Detection
Use intelligence to improve detection and prevention by:
- Creating correlation rules in SIEM
- Blocking IPs/domains at the firewall/proxy
- Enriching alerts with TI context
- Building hunting queries (e.g. MITRE TTP detection logic)
6. 🔁 Feedback Loop & Metrics
Measure effectiveness:
- How many alerts had enriched context?
- Were incidents triaged faster?
- Was the TI timely, relevant, and accurate?
Refine data sources, automate workflows, and improve analyst training continuously.
🧰 Tools to Support Your TI Program
| Category | Tools |
|---|---|
| TIP (Threat Intel Platform) | MISP, OpenCTI, ThreatConnect |
| Automation | SOAR (e.g. Splunk SOAR, TheHive, Cortex) |
| Analysis | YARA, Sigma, IDA Pro, VirusTotal |
| Collection | Abuse.ch, Shodan, Censys |
| Sharing | STIX/TAXII, ISAC memberships |
📋 Threat Intelligence Program Checklist
✅ Goals and scope defined
✅ Collection from diverse sources (OSINT, paid, internal)
✅ Analysis structured with ATT&CK, Diamond Model
✅ Dissemination workflows (to SIEM, SOAR, stakeholders)
✅ Detection enhancements and threat hunts
✅ Metrics and feedback cycle established